Hearing the Falconer #15 ~ 23-March-2019 ~ Should society pay reparations to descendents of slaves?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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23-March-2019: Should society pay reparations to the descendants of slaves?
Democrats and the Reparations Issue in the 2020 Campaign
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Good information on the complex issue of reparations for the descendants of slaves.

First of all, this article mentions calls for official government studies of the need for reparations. As a moderate I believe that studying is ALWAYS a good moderate position on any issue so, by all means, lets have the studies. The more we know, the better.

Also, it should not be controversial to say that people who need help should get help. Whenever societal forces are causing harm to some members of a society the society should be willing to help out.

When we get to the specific issue of paying reparations the issue is a little more complex.

Clearly, if one person or group harms another person or group, the person or group harmed deserves reparations; they should be compensated for the harm done. It would be an extreme view, and wrong, to argue that people or groups that have been harmed should not get compensation.

On the other hand, it seems that it would also be an extreme view, and wrong, to collect reparations for a harm done 1000 years ago.

A good moderate position would be that we should pay reparations to people who are directly harmed and maybe we should go back a generation or two and then stop. For now, I would argue that if an individual can show harm, that resulted from the actions of others, to themselves or their parents or grandparents, let's support reparations. If the harm was done farther back in the past than that let's argue that there needs to be some statute of limitations.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Indpendent Thinkers

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority